1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting unit and an imaging apparatus and, more particularly, to a light emitting unit having a plurality of light emitting elements and an imaging apparatus provided with the light emitting unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Light emitting units having a flash element capable of emitting flashing light by discharge caused by ionizing xenon gas in a discharge tube at a dc voltage obtained by charging a capacitor (electronic flash, referred to simply as “flash”) are known as a light emitting unit for radiating auxiliary light to a subject to be imaged.
Mobile phones with cameras have become widespread. Such mobile phones have a single white light emitting diode (hereinafter referred to as “white LED”) which is a space-saving device for illuminating a subject to enable the subject to be imaged. For example, in the case of imaging under room illumination lower in luminance than daylight, a first button operation is performed to make the white LED to emit light for preliminary illumination on a subject and a second button operation is thereafter performed to image the subject.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2003-307771, a device is described which emits auxiliary light at a high power for a short time at the time of imaging of a still image and emits auxiliary light at a low power for a long time at the time of imaging of a moving image. In Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2003-307771, description is also made with reference to FIG. 5 of the construction of a light emitting element in which a set of a red LED, a green LED and a blue LED forms a single unit capable of emitting white light and the method of separately adjusting the currents flowing through the LEDs electrically connected in parallel with each other to provide certain differences between the quantities of light emitted from the LEDs per unit time.